Henry Kissinger speaking with Chairman Mao.

The following quote by Henry Kissinger in his recent book, “On China,” relates to the reasons for the profound one year change from near-war animosity between China & the U.S. to both governments preparing for Nixon’s historic first visit to Mao’s China. This is the “It” that begins the quote.  What lessons can we learn for our dealings with the prevalent proclivities we find in our antagonistic and animosity filled culture and the Church’s engagement with it?

“It did so by sidestepping the rhetoric of two decades & staying focused on the fundamental strategic objective of a geopolitical dialogue leading to a recasting of the Cold War international order.” (On China, Kissinger; p. 234).

Is such a reordering possible in our two-decades old U.S. Culture War that has perverted our governmental processes and the Christian Faith in the U.S.? 

What should we sidestep? How do we do it?  What remains of the enduring “strategic objective” of the Church – for those who claim Christ who desire to find a way beyond the hubris, the anger, the bitterness, the spitefulness, the willful ignorance, the vengeful attitudes and actions that subsume so much of what is the Body of Christ, today?